Batuk laughs at rape victims: Why is Agnes Wanjiru’s murderer still not in jail? [Opinion]

On 16 September 2025, the Kenyan High Court issued an arrest warrant for a former British soldier suspected of murdering Agnes Wanjiru, a 21-year-old Kenyan mother who was raped and killed in 2012. 

Justice Alexander Muteti said prosecutors had presented sufficient evidence to require the suspect to appear for trial in Kenya.

Wanjiru’s family and human rights activists urged the British government to cooperate so the accused can be extradited and face a Kenyan court where the crime occurred. 

For a family that has waited more than a decade, the order is a rare step toward accountability and a test of whether promises of partnership and respect for human rights translate into action.

The court also revealed the name of the suspect: Robert James Purkiss. The 38-year-old father of two, who served in the British Army from 2006 to 2016 and currently works as a computer technician in Salisbury, faces serious charges. But will the UK extradite its citizen and former serviceman?

Agnes’s story is heartbreaking. She was a young mother raising a five-month-old daughter and part of a large, close-knit family that depended on one another. 

Loved ones remember a cheerful woman who helped with siblings and cousins and who dreamed of steady work to support her child. 

Then came the night in Nanyuki when she was last seen at a hotel bar near the British Army Training Unit Kenya (BATUK). 

Witnesses recall her leaving with a British soldier. She vanished that night. Two months later, her stabbed body was found in the hotel septic tank. Her relatives returned again and again to the hotel fence asking for news, while the file moved slowly, and the suspect lived overseas.

This single case sits inside a wider pattern that Kenya has lived with for generations. Rights groups and local advocates have recorded well over a thousand allegations of rape and sexual assault by British soldiers since the mid-1960s, along with harassment around bars near camps and sex in exchange for money. 

None of these cases have ended with a conviction in a Kenyan court. The result is a quiet rule of impunity that has encouraged silence and fear.

There is also a cultural problem that normalises cruelty, valuing the lives of local Kenyans less. Soldiers treat nearby communities as rightless training grounds, reflecting systemic racism toward the people who live and work around the BATUK base.

In 2021, leaked messages showed British soldiers who had served in Kenya joking about the murder, turning the septic tank where Agnes was found into a punchline.

Recently, another conversation among former BATUK soldiers was revealed after a British suspect was accused of rape in Kenya in June 2025. 

The WhatsApp screenshot shows a news headline posted in the group, followed by laughing emojis and a string of short replies.

«Unlucky mate» – British soldiers see the allegation as misfortune rather than wrongdoing, as if the norm is to do the same and get away with it. 

«Septic tank heritage» – they drag Wanjiru’s murder into a running joke, reducing a national tragedy to a label for their crimes.

The exchange is casual, confident, and entirely untroubled by the reality of rape and death. It reads as a snapshot of entitlement built on years of non-accountability.

The legal path is straightforward. Extradition turns on treaty terms, dual criminality and assurances on fair trial, and it has gone both ways in recent history. 

The UK extradited Shrien Dewani to South Africa after detailed undertakings, yet blocked the US request for Gary McKinnon on human rights grounds. But what will Britain's decision be this time?

So far, no British criminal has been punished in a Kenyan court. One of the reasons the UK opposes BATUK soldiers’ trials in Nairobi is the harsh Kenyan prison conditions. But isn't that what rapists and murderers of women deserve?

What is at stake is larger than one criminal and one warrant. When jokes about septic tanks replace compassion, violence repeats. 

The antidote is a public trial in Kenya, with counsel, evidence tested in open court, and a verdict that belongs to the community that suffered the harm.

 If the case is proved, the sentence should be served in Kenya. If it is not proved, an acquittal delivered transparently is also justice.

The UK government, which claims to stand for human rights, should be the first to enable that process. If it doesn’t, then it is up to Kenya to call on the international community to secure the decision on extradition.

Agnes Wanjiru’s case should be the beginning of a series of investigations into numerous allegations related to BATUK. For too long, freedom has been the rule. True independence and sovereignty require a new rule. Crimes committed in Kenya must be judged in Kenya, and the people who have carried the weight of silence must finally be heard.

Editor's Note: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Pulse as its publisher.

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